Packing up, moving on...

This is finally it then, the last commune blog written about the commune! December 2007 was a month of farewells, as 2 communists – Stefan and Chris (ok, one ex-communist if you’re a stickler for details) left Greenpeace, and one left India. Stefan headed back to home and family in Germany and Chris to explore life outside Greenpeace, yet inside India.

Not before one last commune party though, super fun as always. Though those of us who did know them did spare a thought (really!!) for the 'missing' members of the commune, its founding sisters - Namrata, Nayana and Swati.

And that's Stefan aka Chacha with his keepsake from GP India, a work of creative collaboration, but most of the donkey work was the other firang's, Chris.

So with office moving and the commune disintegrating, it was time to pack up worldly belongings and make sure that the house – home - that had been simply ‘the commune’ for almost two years was in a fit state to be handed back to the landlord.

So the last weekend before Christmas turned into one long cleaning and inventorising session, interspersed with beer and takeout food, and liberally spiced with nostalgia. As fate would have it, only yours truly and the last founding member of the commune, the lady with the razor sharp memory, Vinuta were around, with Areeba vanishing off to some corner of Kerala for reasons unknown, leaving her dozen or so bags behind for me to deal with. So this is the cleaning detail… Gomti am sure worked harder than she ever did before. I’m sure some of that dirt was there when we moved in, but hey, might as well be thorough….

Thankfully we had help from action girl Smitha, who would actually have made a perfect addition to the commune. I mean, I’ve never cleaned the fridge, but there she is, doing a pretty thorough job of it.

No prizes for guessing whose room had the most junk, er, stuff. Really Vinuta, do you actually need SO many clothes???

A couple of hours and my packing was done, and my room neat and tidy. As it always was.Vinuta didn’t like that though, so she made sure ‘stuff’ showed up from somewhere and soon it was looking like this!

This kind of work always gets the mind wandering… and cleaning is dreary work… must clear out the fridge… need a break…there’s still some beer in the fridge… am sure you see where this is going! Who are we to stand in the way of the laws of physics… beer must be drunk while its still cold said the bald wise man….

And then there were two… the shoe cabinet never looked so clean!

Sunday was bag moving day, with various bags dropped off at various places in Bangalore, and Vinuta off to Yelahanka with her 23 bags. No kidding. 23. I never lie.

I was off to Bombay the next morning, so I spent my last night at the commune taking a few pictures for posterity, listening to ‘the commune CD’ and remembering the good times. The construction next door – yes, the same one that would wake us up at unearthly hours ESPECIALLY on weekends – has progressed a lot in two years. The view has changed.

I guess we have too.